Apparently, 25s penalty for Frijns, so championship is secured for him.

Dutch presenter Olav Mol tweeted that apparently Bianchi wants to take Frijns to court over the incident. I think he really did put a lot of pressure on himself to take this championship, with his F1 career in mind. Still, seems a bit dramatic, doesn’t it?

Disagreed @magnificent-geoffrey, and the reason is simple: percentage-wise, iambic pentameter beats the ever-living cr*p out of “regular” prose for surviving the ages. Also, how many spelling mistakes have you ever counted in iambic pentameter?

I would say when it comes to discussions, it is important that people try to prove themselves right rather than prove others wrong. That might sound like it’s the same, but the difference is that the latter invites ad-homs and other irrelevant distractions, whereas the former invites research and introspection into how your opinion is formed and why it is held.

For example, if I had been trying to prove @magnificent-geoffrey as wrong as he clearly is in this instance, I might have said “he clearly doesn’t know anything about pentameter and probably just looked up the term in a dictionary”. Which has a) no basis in reality (it can’t have, because I don’t know the person behind the handle) and b) has a derisory slant which means that, intentionally or not, if could very easily be read as an insult in turn inviting more insults and c) doesn’t actually address the issue he raises which is should one write in iambic pentameter or not and therefore isn’t even an argument for or against his point. As opposed to the entirely sensible, non-insulting (and correct) statements I started this post with ;)

Also, distinguish between facts and opinion, both from other people and yourself. You can argue one, but not the other. Arguing one might lead to discussion, trying to argue the other will only lead to butt-hurt.

Failing that: Belgium, Japan, Canada, Britain, Germany, Malaysia, China, Brazil and I am waiting to make final judgement on India and CotA. If neither of those impress (India looked ok last year), probably Australia and Bahrain.

I hate street circuits (in F1). I can certainly appreciate the challenge for the drivers, but if they want that challenge, as far as my perception of those races is concerned they might as well turn street circuit races into WRC style time trial events.

James Allen has said that Gerard Lopez told him that Genii are having to top up expenditures at the team despite them having picked up additional sponsorship and partners over the course of the season. This may or may not have something to do with higher than projected outlays because they are competing at a higher level than expected, but regardless, I think it’s safe to say they don’t have the kind of funding Mercedes does.

Regardless of all of that, I don’t think Hamilton is considering Lotus and Lotus isn’t seriously considering drivers other than who they have at the moment.

Nonsense. I think the “being publicly affectionate” thing is way overblown anyway. But then I’m not counting the number of hugs doled out.

Also, the lying to stewarts thing can’t be blamed on Hamilton imo. Being caught doing donuts is also childish to hold against an F1 driver outside an F1 track. I doubt anyone present at the time thought anything other than “woohoo and good on Hamilton for entertaining us like this”. Except the policeman I guess ;)

On the topic of Ma’s superlicence, does anyone know if the rules on that were changed relatiely recently and if so, when? Because I seem to remember Loeb was expressly denied a superlicence and he wasn’t in contention for a race seat, he was merely trying to arrange a test day for himself. Unless I am mis-remembering that bit :)

Clearly it’s because Raikkonen had temporarily been turned into a Dalek and whatever mechanics were to hand were trying to protect any nearby machinery from assimilation.

Of course, his human side soon restored the usual dominance. That’s just how awesome Raikkonen is. But the battle always rages on in the background. It’s a little known fact that explains what the press call his monotonous and boring attitude and the price he pays for the lack of emotions that might otherwise get in the way of his racing: the deal he made to have a Dalek integrated into his body.

After the race, they asked James Allison about that and he basically said that normally, as the race progresses they reduce the fuel mixture to reduce power output with an eye to saving the engine. At Spa, obviously near the end Raikkonen came under increasing pressure from Hulkenberg and so the team asked him to pick up the pace to make sure of 3d and the radio messages you referred to took place. If I remember correctly, Kimi responds with “So give me full power! Give me full power!”.

I may be reading too much into this, but I think Raikkonen was a little bit frustrated at that point. He’d obviously had a far from easy race in a car that wasn’t really handling as well as expected and desired and it wasn’t the first time in the race that the team asked him to pick up the pace either.

If you follow this link, at around the 4 minute mark, they ask him to pick up the pace a bit as well, earlier on in the race and he responds saying (I think) “Yeah, but I don’t have any grip, so…” with Simon Renni responding “Ok Kimi, understood. We need to push, push in harder and we’ll get the front tyres working”. Obviously that’s not how it worked out and after the race Raikkonen said they added a bit more front wing and lost even more top speed as a result.

I think autosport.com’s online deal is quite good value as it also gives access to additional editorials. I always forget I get a digital version of the autosport magazine included in whatever package I picked until a couple of days as well until it comes around :p

That’s who I meant to cover under “only similar amounts of experience”. Why risk him over D’Ambrosio? You never know, I guess. James Allen seems to think Lotus do know him sufficiently, as he’s run in their 2010 car for Pirelli.